Among the events will be:

 • On 22 April 2022, a temporary exhibition “Toots 100. The Sound of Toots Thielemans” will open at the Royal Library of Belgium (KBR) in collaboration with the Musical Instruments Museum (MIM)

 • The last weekend of April 2022 will be entirely dedicated to Toot’s 100th birthday with a birthday concert at Bozar on 29 April 29 2022 featuring national and international guests

• The birthday weekend will have various activities celebrating Toots including Brussels Jazz Weekend and Brosella Festival

The post Toots Thielemans Centenary Events Announced first appeared on UK Jazz News.

The deadline for voting in this year’s Parliamentary Jazz Awards will be at midnight on 14 May 2021 and anyone may vote. In addition to the usual categories a pertinent new one has been added: the Lockdown Innovation Award.

The Parliamentary Jazz Awards celebrate the diversity and breadth of the jazz scene within the United Kingdom. The awards are organised by the All Party Parliamentary Jazz Appreciation Group (APPJAG), which is co-chaired by John Spellar MP and Lord Mann. On the aims of the award, John Spellar, Alison Thewless MP and Chi Onwurah MP commented: “These awards are a great opportunity to celebrate the talents and energies of the great musicians, educators, promoters, and journalists who keep jazz flourishing, in spite of the challenges they faced in 2020.”

• Jazz Album of the Year (released in 2020 by a UK band or musicians.)
• Services to Jazz Award (to a living person for their outstanding contribution to jazz)
• Jazz Newcomer of the Year (UK based artist, musician or group with a debut album released in 2020)
• Jazz Education Award (to an educator or project for raising the standard for jazz education in the UK)
• Jazz Media Award (including broadcasters, journalists, magazines, blogs, listings and books)
• Jazz Venue of the Year (including jazz clubs, venues, festivals and promoters)
• Jazz Ensemble of the Year
• Jazz Instrumentalist of the Year
• Jazz Vocalist of the Year
• Lockdown Innovation Award

The post Voting in Parliamentary Jazz Awards now open until 14 May 2021 first appeared on UK Jazz News.

UKJazz News: What are your plans for the return of in-person Mood Indigo events? What Covid precautions will be in place?

Janet McCunn: Our first event back will be at Riverside Arts Centre in Sunbury on 6 June and then we’ll be doing monthly concerts there; we will be following the Covid rules with a socially distanced audience.

Terence Collie: The first concert will be with guitarist Maciek Pysz and the quartet with whom we did an online video collaboration paying respects to Chick Corea after he died a few months ago [see video below].

UKJN: Do you think there’ll be challenges in winning the audience back or do you get the impression people are keen to get out?

JM: I was quite surprised, as most people who come to us are in a vulnerable age group and I thought they wouldn’t feel comfortable, but last autumn they couldn’t wait to come back. So I think they’ll be enthusiastic. A lot of people online are asking when we’re coming back.

TC: We’ve seen a split in the reaction of our audience during the pandemic. We’re still in touch with everyone as we do a monthly mail-out, so our audience knows what’s going on. And some people are quite happy with staying online. We’ll still continue with our livestreams even after the events are in-person again, to get the best of both worlds.

JM: We reach people from different parts of the world and different parts of Britain who wouldn’t be able to attend our events normally so there are some advantages.

UKJN: How did Mood Indigo begin?

TC: We started working together in 2012. We met at a local jazz night in our area which is the Kingston/Hampton area. Janet was asked to host a monthly jazz night at a French bistro which wanted to bring a Ronnie Scott’s experience to Teddington. Janet got to know the owner and asked me if I wanted to join her and I jumped at the opportunity. A few months after that we decided to go really big and to put on a jazz festival based in Hampton Hill, called the TW12 Jazz Festival.

UKJN: Are there any plans in place for the TW12 Jazz Festival to return this year?

TC: Not this year, it’s a lot to organise. Since we already have our monthly events such as our livestreams, those have taken precedence. We find it’s easier to handle these monthly, smaller chunks as we go.

UKJN: What have the highlights been for you as promoters?

JM: Doing the festival was both amazing and terrifying at the same time. Being on the stage introducing famous musicians, well I really had to pinch myself to make sure it was all real! I also loved our smaller gigs at intimate venues such as the Café Yukari in Kew and the 1901 Arts Club in Waterloo. Both of these venues have an intimate atmosphere and have beautiful grand pianos, perfect for acoustic duo and trio concerts. But being invited to put on  ‘Janet’s Jazz Night’ at Jazz Café Posk in Hammersmith was in some ways my baby and I hope we will go back eventually.

TC: At the festival we had an 18-piece band, Femi Temowo and The Engine Orchestra, perform for us and Radio 3 came down to record it for broadcast – that was definitely a highlight. We also had the Kyle Eastwood band as the headline act; the audience was in a frenzy, it was like we had Sting with us!

JM: The local paper printed a headline saying that Clint Eastwood’s son was going to be at Hampton Hill’s Jazz Festival! I believe this helped to get the word out to locals and probably contributed to the crowds. It was amazing seeing such long queues!

UKJN: Janet, what was your favourite part of Janet’s Jazz Fridays?

JM: I’m a very social person and so I loved welcoming audience members before the concert started. I enjoyed listening to the instrumental set at the beginning of the evening with a special instrumental guest each month, which took a lot of pressure off me and I could calmly listen to them play. I also enjoyed introducing the guest singer of the month after my set was over, many of them were students or part-time vocalists and it was often an exciting adventure for them. The jam sessions were fun but we were often working against the clock to finish on time. We tried to accommodate everyone on the list, so it was always a relief when we managed it!

UKJN: How have you managed to carry on with community building during the pandemic?

TC: We’ve started a Patreon account so we have people that support us monthly. I’ve being doing Patreon-only concerts, where I put on specific concerts for that audience, which I think helps to nurture that special relationship between us and our top fans.

UKJN: Did the two of you envision yourselves having careers in music/music promotion?

TC: Music grabbed me from the first time I put my hands on an instrument as a child. I’ve got an uncle who is a professional musician; when I was 14 I saw him play and I knew it was something I wanted to do.

JM: I never had any music lessons as a child unfortunately but I always enjoyed music and worked for some years in the record industry. In my twenties I really got into classical music and ballet through my former boss who was a ballet critic. I always liked jazz, but I never thought too much about it, except that it gave me a warm feeling of freedom when I heard it. But in 2004, I joined the Richmond Jazz School as a beginner vocalist and soon after that I started going to regular gigs. This lead to organising my own jam nights and running a small intimate monthly gig at a café/tea shop called The Tea Box in Richmond which ran for a few years, featuring different musicians and vocalists each month. Hosting these events became my absolute passion!

UKJN: Terence, do you have any new music in development?

TC: I’ve been pretty busy in the whole lockdown period, doing lots of arrangements and reharmonisations. I’ve recorded an EP alongside Esther Bennett, which I produced, and there’ll be a livestream launch gig on 25 April. I’ve just finished doing an arrangement of Midnight Sun.

The post Mood Indigo resume live events (6 June 2021) first appeared on UK Jazz News.

Streams from Africa will present emerging voices from several countries within the continent, focusing on showcasing contemporary and innovative sounds. The series will also have a selection of shows from the INDIBA IS take-over produced in Joburg Theatre in South Africa. The schedule of the concert series is as follows:

• Monday 24 May:  Elida Almeida (Cape Verde), 8pm
• Tuesday 25 May: Yugen Blakrok (South Africa), 8pm
• Wednesday 26 May: Thandi Ntuli (South Africa), 8pm
• Wednesday 26 May: The Brother Moves On (South Africa), 9pm
• Thursday 27 May: Amosi Just a Label (Angola), 8pm
• Friday 28 May:  Umlilo & LaliBoi (South Africa), 8pm
• Friday 28 May:  Azu Tiwaline (Tunisia), 9pm

Both Thandi Ntuli and The Brother Moves on are sets from the INDIBA IS take over in Joburg Theatre. These concerts were premiered for a limited screening in PDX Jazz Festival in February 2021 and Streams from Africa will be offering special re-runs of these shows. All the streams will be free and will be available to watch after the aforementioned times for a period.

As the Press Release says: “Presenting the young and emerging voices from several countries within the continent, the series focuses on contemporary and fresh sounds. A truly global project, the series comprises of six new showcases co-curated with Cultural Connections Africa and Serious, and a selection of shows from the INDIBA IS take-over produced in Joburg Theatre in South Africa.”

We were speaking last week about Cultural Connections Africa to one of the prime movers behind the project, Katherine McVicker of US-based Music Works International. She told us about how CCA , which aims to support African music and culture across the globe, paving the way in making touring more viable for African countries, has developed momentum. The network in which people can share knowledge, resources and experience, currently includes over 30 stakeholders across 15 countries in Africa, and the website invites more people to join it. As McVicker told us: ‘We started this in 2019 – pre-pandemic, but the pandemic has provided us more time to develop this cooperation.’

The post Serious / Cultural Connections Africa announce new concert series first appeared on UK Jazz News.

Nishla Smith grew up in Sydney, has studied in Berlin and currently resides in Manchester, a place where she ‘found [her] feet’ noting Manchester’s warm and open community. A feature of her work is the raw vulnerability woven into her music. In March 2019, she developed a staged song-cycle ‘What Happened to Agnes’ commissioned by Opera North, a story about her great aunt who disappeared in Malaysia in the 1930s. ‘I’m a natural storyteller,’ she says. ‘I love taking audiences on an adventure’. This storytelling will reappear in her upcoming album ‘Friends with Monsters’ with her quintet, which will be released in later this year with Whirlwind Recordings. The album was recorded at Giant Wafer Studios in Wales. The album is set in a troubled night and spans from dusk to dawn. There will be four interludes in the album: Twilight, Midnight, 3AM and Dawn. Nishla has written duos for each interlude which will include pianist Richard Jones, bass player, Joshua Cavanaugh-Brierley, drummer Johnny Hunter and trumpet player Aaron Wood.

This storytelling will also make an appearance at The Great Hall at St Bartholomew’s Hospital on 19 May. Nishla will be joined by pianist Tom Harris, who will be performing with her throughout May on various livestreams. On their partnership Nishla explained that, ‘I work with him on my stage work. We often work to find characters and voices in our songs. Storytelling will be a big element in our duo performances. For the May shows, we’ll use poetry and new interludes to weave the songs together into three loosely connected programmes.‘

Nishla was still residing in the UK when lockdown began last year, but is currently in Australia. On the subject of creative blocks and finding motivation within a challenging year Nishla remarked: ‘When the lockdown happened, I thought I was going to write all this new music, but you need a lot of mental space for that. I actually did this panel for Jazz North and the topic of inspiration came up, I’ve realised that it’s often when your brain is busy with something else you actually get inspired. I love reacting to other people’s work-going to an art exhibition, listening to classical music or seeing a really good film. Part of your brain is occupied but some little back part can get free’.

The upcoming album ‘Friends with Monsters’ is borne out of Nishla’s struggle with sleep yet ends on a sunny note with the “Dawn” interlude. Nishla stated that, ‘I have a night brain which is irrational but also has a lot of creative ideas. At the end of it, you get a lot of relief with dawn arriving, capturing a feeling of inexplicable joy. Hopefully the album will take you on a journey on all those feelings’. Incorporating personal themes into her music is a productive outlet. As she says, it is ‘incredibly rewarding and cathartic. I’m mainly aiming to write songs which feel authentic’. And musical influences? ‘I listen to all sorts of music across different genres’, she says, ‘but it always sticks out when you feel something real in their voice and lyrics’. For Nishla, those ‘real’ voices include Cécile McLorin Salvant, Joni Mitchell and Nina Simone.

Nishla Smith is also performing at Ronnie Scott’s on 13 May and at Wiltshire Music Centre on 26 May. Sebastian Scotney is a member of the advisory board of CMF.

The post Nishla Smith (Live at Barts Great Hall, 19 May 2021 / Announcing New Album on Whirlwind Recordings) first appeared on UK Jazz News.

The process behind selecting the winner was in two stages. The first step was that all 160+ EJN member organisations from 34 countries were asked to select a potential winner. The second step, a 6 person jury of EJN members and other music professionals from Europe gathered online in March 2021 to choose the winner.

The 2021 Jury was:

• Pelin Opcin (Serious/EFG London Jazz Festival, UK)
• Antonis Zouganelis (Athens Technopolis Jazz Festival, Greece)
• Sofia Jernberg (artist, Sweden)
• Christine Stephan (JAZZTHETIK magazine, Germany)
• Christoph Huber (Porgy & Bess, Austria 2020 Winner)
• Jan Ole Otnæs (Victoria-Nasjonal Jazzscene, Norway, 2020 Winner)

A member of the jury commented: ‘Jazzfest Berlin is the perfect choice for the 10th EJN Award for Adventurous Programming. It is one of the oldest jazz festivals in Europe and yet it has been able to innovate itself, striving to break musical and cultural boundaries. This included engaging with a younger generation of organisers and artists, experimenting with new fruition spaces and commissioning innovative musical projects. Three years ago it appointed a young woman as artistic director – the first in its history – and in the year of the pandemic it created a fantastic programme in several locations including a live “musical bridge” between Berlin and New York, reminding us about the importance of collaboration and exchanges at a time of acute isolation. These are the traits of a festival that is not afraid to take risks and push its limits- just as jazz and creative music should do!‘.

Nadin Deventer joined the online event to receive the award on behalf of JazzFest Berlin. She commented on being awarded with the accolade for the 2020 Festival, her third as its Artistic Director.

“We are very honoured and truly happy to receive this unique award which we consider to be a precious recognition from our peers, from colleagues across the whole European continent and beyond. Thank you all so much for your support, inspiration and friendship throughout all these years of change and challenges. Festival work is teamwork, and I’d like to thank all of our colleagues of the Berliner Festspiele and our partners for their great engagement and trust in our adventures. And last but certainly not least I’d like to thank our fantastic musicians for going on this journey with us, for their enormous creativity, musicianship and commitment in shaping their wonderful projects and creating those overwhelming moments that leave you – again and again – speechless. Very soon, we will be able to come together again within our international, sparkling and traveling community of artists, audiences, journalists and organizers to celebrate the beauty and power of music‘.

During the event, various artists across the world gave video contributions congratulating Deventer. Many artists commented on the vision and ethos behind JazzFest. Alexander Hawkins commented that JazzFest is an environment where ‘vision, egalitarianism, accessibility‘ can be found. Jason Moran noted that JazzFest was founded in 1964, and that Dr. Martin Luther King sent a speech when the festival opened and how the civil rights movement at the time was instrumental in informing the activism behind JazzFest.

The post Jazzfest Berlin wins EJN Award for Adventurous Programming 2021 first appeared on UK Jazz News.

The London-based ensemble is led by drummer Rod Oughton. Their debut EP ‘Baby Zeza’ was released in 2019. The group have performed all over the UK, including venues in London, Bristol and the South West. In 2020, the Arts Council put funding towards their UK tour and the recording of the album ‘Only in Autumn’.

Rod Oughton graduated from the Royal Welsh College of Music in 2015 and has performed across the UK and Europe, including Havana, Cuba and the Dubai Opera House. He has also appeared on the main stages of the Latitude and Citadel Festivals with Hudson Taylor, in Cadogan Hall with the James Taylor Quartet and Hannah Grace at the BTS Festival in Hyde Park (supporting Barbara Streisand). The rest of the ensemble includes, Alina Miroshnichenko (vocals), Ronan Perrett (alto sax), Alexandra Ridout (trumpet), Dan Smith (tenor sax), Jacky Naylor (piano), Billy Marrows (guitar) and Pete Komor (bass).

Rod explains the concept behind the group, ‘OK Aurora was formed to make a big sound. It’s an eight-piece band, including three horns and a singer, so it’s a lot of fun when we all get going. I take a lot of influence from artists such as Steely Dan and Becca Stevens, who blur the lines between pop and jazz, and I’ve always tried to write in a way that allows the musicians to stretch out but is also accessible to an audience that might not be too familiar with jazz‘. In regards to their new partnership with Ubuntu Music, Rod commented saying, ‘I’m super happy to sign to Ubuntu, as I feel honoured to be part of their community. So many artists on their roster are not only incredible musicians, but also my friends and peers. I feel as though this label is a great representation of some of the amazing stuff that’s going on in the UK right now, and I’m thrilled to be a part of it‘.

The post Ubuntu Music Signs OK Aurora for Album Release in Summer 2021 first appeared on UK Jazz News.

SOUNDCLOUD LINK

• Vocalist Trineice Robinson from the Princeton music faculty is in a duo with pianist Cyrus Chestnut . The link is to their version of Duke Ellington’s “Come Sunday”.

• There is a Holy Week theme here: LJN readers – and visitors to “Dr.T”‘s website have exclusive access to the single until it is released on Good Friday 2 April
• This is a track from Robinson’s upcoming debut album “All or Nothing”. The full album will be out on 6 August, just before Robinson’s 40^th birthday.

• The album is a blend of jazz, gospel, R&B and soul, Robinson’s signature sound. The combination of Chesnut’s piano and Robinson’s vocals produce a powerhouse collaboration. Robinson says of “Come Sunday”, that the song “definitely brings out my church influences. I sing it at church, so it’s a familiar piece for me”.

The post LJN now on Instagram first appeared on UK Jazz News.

DETAILS

• This a part time, two year programme.

• The programme will begin Autumn 2021 and anyone of any age can apply

• Successful applicants to the scheme will be mentored in both artistic and career development with regular workshops in place

• The scheme helps with promotion through videos, websites, securing airtime on radio and meetings with agents and promoters

• Present and past CMF artists include violinist Elina Buksha, the Ligeti Quartet, contemporary jazz group Nérija, mezzo-sopranos Lotte Betts-Dean and Helen Charlston, jazz double-bassist Misha Mullov-Abbado and accordionist Bartosz Glowaki

• CMF organises concert series involving CMF Artist, including performances at St Bartholomew the Great, the Guildhall Art Gallery, the clock tower at St Pancras and the Wallace Collection.

• The first round of auditions will take place in early June and the second rounds will be mid-September

TWO JAZZ MUSICIANS WRITE ABOUT THEIR EXPERIENCE AS CMF ARTISTS

• Drummer/ percussionist Pedro Segundo was a CMF artist from 2014-2016 and spoke of what he gained from the scheme, “CMF allowed me to curate something from beginning till end at a time I needed the most help. I had first hand access to all the different areas in the music industry from mailing lists, taxes, promoters and audiences. I couldn’t be more grateful for my time with CMF. They pushed the boundaries of my creative possibilities and nurtured my career development. CMF happened at a very important moment in my career as my freelance life was already on a roll between jazz, classical and an array of musical worlds in between. It made me slow down and truly believe in my potential as a creator and self-managing artist. I still look back at all the skills I gained from this opportunity. Forever grateful.”

• Saxophonist Alex Hitchcock, who joined the scheme in 2017, explains how CMF helped him with his career, “CMF did two main things for me. First, CMF’s Artist Manager gave me great advice and was a really valuable sounding board for ideas. She helped me to deal with logistics but also musical questions and sorted a couple of legal things too. Also, they funded my first recording, as well as some really good PR for that. I had just left college and was trying to kick off my band, and wouldn’t have been able to do that without their funding at a crucial point. I have a lot to be grateful for!”

OTHER NEWS ABOUT CMF

• CMF and Barts Heritage are working in a developing partnership (FEATURE ARTICLE)

Note: UKJN editor Sebastian Scotney is a member of CMF’s advisory board.

The post Applications to become City Music Foundation artists now open until 30 April first appeared on UK Jazz News.